Cash Under the Mistletoe
by Darkfire Galaxy
Summary: Christmas is coming and Rhydian has bee avoiding Maddy. Fed up with Maddy sulking all week, Shannon comes up with an idea to get them talking again, and makes some money off Maddy at the same time.


Wolfblood

Cash Under the Mistletoe

Shannon Kelly looked up from the computer in the dark room as Maddy trudged in and threw herself down in a chair. There was a crash as she threw her bag off with enough force to jolt the table next to her and send a camera and a few magazines crashing to the floor. She'd been sulking for the best part of a week now and Shannon decided it was time to put an end to it.

"Okay, start talking." Shannon demanded as she saved her work and got up to pick the camera up. "You just damaged photography club equipment and you don't even care. That's how I know things are at crisis point." Shannon had expected a struggle to get the information out of Maddy. What she didn't expect was for Maddy to blurt it out.

"Why the hell are boys so confusing?"

"What?" How could Maddy say that when she herself wasn't making any sense? Shannon's brain felt ready to melt and it must have shown on her face.

"Rhydian seems to have been avoiding me for a fortnight." Maddy seethed. "He's supposed to be coming over for Christmas because this'll only be the fifth time in his life he's had Christmas turkey due to being moved around so much. He won't get that with Mrs Vaughan since she's a vegetarian and my parents are always telling me to make an effort with him since they want him to realise he's got people his own age to share stuff with but I can't do that if he's avoiding me and I really don't want him to cancel Christmas since I was really looking forward to it. I love him to pieces but he can just be so bone-headed at times!"

"You… What…?" an evil look crossed Shannon's face. Only then did Maddy realise what she'd said.

"No… I…"

"Okay, I think I have the answer to all your problems." Shannon's grin didn't budge an inch. "I've got something that will force him closer to you and it'll definitely get you talking. With a bit of luck, the truth can come out and you both can sort it. You just need to make sure that it gets him talking."

"What are you going to do?" Maddy couldn't hide the worried look on her face. Her eyes were like those of a rabbit caught in the headlights.

"Just leave it to me." Shannon fired off a text to Rhydian asking him to meet her in the darkroom. "Go to the girls' toilets and wait there until you hear him come in. I'll take care of the rest." Shannon walked over to her bag and started rummaging in it. Maddy watched with a curiosity that made her feel like she would be better off just running for her life. Shannon looked back over her shoulder and saw Maddy still there. "What are you still doing here?" she asked. "He could be here any minute!" Maddy hurriedly made her way out of the room and into the girls' toilets. A few doors down, she could hear Shannon dragging a chair in the dark room and muttering every swear word she knew as she stretched up for something. She was dreading what Shannon had in store, but she trusted her friend.

"Shannon, are you in here?" Maddy heard Rhydian's voice as he entered the dark room.

"Glad you could make it." Shannon's voice was perfectly neutral. If she didn't suffer such bad stage fright, Maddy would have encouraged her to chase a career as an actress.

"What did you want me for?" Rhydian asked. "Hang on, why are you holding that weird cord? What the hell's it connected to?" Maddy had to wonder what excuse Shannon was going to come up with. She hadn't remembered a cord there before, so it must have been what she was doing while he walked up.

"Does this skirt make me look fat?" Shannon asked. Maddy tried desperately hard not to laugh. If she laughed, Rhydian would hear. If he heard, he might cotton on to what was going on… whatever that was. Maddy still wasn't too sure herself.

"Is _that_ it?" Maddy could tell Rhydian was fixing her with a pointed glare. "You girls are just impossible! I thought out of all of them, _you_ wouldn't care about that sort of thing!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shannon snapped.

"You don't seem like the type to fuss with clothes." Rhydian said. "You don't seem like the type who'd be wondering if you look fat. You seem like the type who'd be wondering if everyone else was okay."

"Flattery now isn't going to save you." Shannon muttered through clenched teeth. "There's nothing else for it, you're just going to have to repay me."

"So you're vain _and_ an extortionist." Rhydian rolled his eyes.

"Don't even talk to me about extortion! Maddy still owes me ten quid!"

' _Do I_?' Maddy thought. ' _I don't remember that_.' Then it hit her. Shannon was going to make her pay in _every_ sense of the word for her mood all week.

"What are you going to have me do?" Rhydian's voice carried a note of worry."

"Well…" Maddy could hear Shannon's voice drop to a whisper."

"There is no way in _hell_ I'm doing that!" Rhydian snapped.

"It's just five seconds, Rhydian." This was sounding ominous.

"How would you even count a second while doing _that_?" What manner of thing had Shannon suggested? Maddy was really starting to doubt her.

"It takes about a second to say the word 'steamboat'." Shannon shrugged. "All you have to do is make it last for five steamboats." Suddenly, she _really_ wasn't sure this was such a good idea. Without thinking, she made her way out from the toilets and back to the dark room. Sure enough, Shannon was gripping a length of red cord tightly. It was suspending something in the ceiling that with the lights off Maddy couldn't see without using her wolf. As much as she wanted to let Shannon and Tom in on the secret, this wasn't the time or place. Their time would come.

"I forgot my bag!" she growled in a warning tone intended to tell Shannon that the plan was off. She made a beeline for where her bag was by the table, but discovered that she'd had no such luck. Shannon had refused to take the hint.

"Ah, Maddy; you're just in time." Shannon tugged on the cord, causing something to drop. "Oh look, there's some mistletoe there. If you two just bunch up a bit closer, you'll be right under it."

"You've got to be kidding!" Maddy scowled.

"Get on with it, guys. We've got English in five minutes." Maddy wanted nothing more at the moment than to smack the grin off Shannon's face. "Look, it's this or you both say one thing to each other that you'd never normally dream of saying. It has to be something straight from the heart."

"Shan, are you completely insane?" Rhydian practically spat the last word. Shannon flinched involuntarily. "What the hell am I going to say that…?" Rhydian was cut off by Maddy forcibly spinning him round, pulling him under the mistletoe and smashing their mouths together. As soon as they connected, they both felt like a tightly wound elastic band finally snapped inside each of them, letting loose a flood of relief. She ran her hands over her shoulders and down his arms, feeling the heat spread down them as his veins rapidly turned black.

"Hands…" she whispered, breaking the kiss so briefly that Shannon wouldn't see.

"Are we getting frisky, Rhydian?" Shannon teased. Neither of them responded. Maddy had clamped Rhydian's hands in hers to hide his veins and pulled them close to her chest so that her blazer concealed them from anyone walking in. Shannon took in the sight before her and wondered exactly what she'd started. "Guys…" Suddenly, Maddy and Rhydian parted, gasping frantically for air.

"I'm sorry." Rhydian said as he drew in breath desperately. "I know I should have been more open with you. I just really feel uneasy about big get-togethers like this and if I ever admitted that before people made fun of me or took no notice. I guess I'm just struggling to remember that I can actually tell people about these things now."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of." Maddy reached up and pecked him on the cheek. "I was always thinking you weren't listening to me when I tried to help you, but you just weren't ready for me to get involved sometimes."

"Was _that_ enough, Shan?" Rhydian asked, glaring at her. Shannon couldn't find the words to answer. She just stood there with one hand stuffed in her pocket to hide the fact she'd recorded most of the kiss on her phone and the other one over her mouth in stunned shock. Suddenly, there was a deafening ring as the bell went off to signal the next lesson.

"Go on, we'll catch you up." Maddy grinned as she lightly shoved Rhydian in the direction of the doorway and grabbed her bag. As soon as she was sure Rhydian was gone, she reached into her blazer pocket and stuffed a ten pound note into Shannon's hand. "Here's the money I apparently owe you. Don't make a regular habit of trying to make cash under the mistletoe."

Christmas…

Maddy and Rhydian sat on the sofa in the Smiths' household. Emma and Dan were busy washing up after the Christmas dinner. Maddy was watching the Muppets Christmas Carol on the TV. She'd thought Rhydian was watching with her until she'd looked up.

"Are you asleep?" she asked incredulously as she smacked him on the arm playfully.

" _God save my little broken body_!" Rizzle muttered as he jumped from the gate. Charles completely missed catching him and he hit the snow with a thump.

"I'm wondering if I'm still dreaming." Rhydian said as he stole a glance into the kitchen and saw that Emma and Dan had their backs to them. Quickly, he reached down and pecked Maddy on the lips.

"Seriously, how is this not making you laugh?" Maddy rolled her eyes and tried to hide the blush creeping over her face.

"Maddy, I've seen this so many times I've memorised it." Rhydian shrugged. "In every care home I was at it was this exact movie and then to bed to wait for Santa."

"I'm surprised they let you believe in Santa from the way you talk about it." Maddy scoffed.

" _Oh, I forgot my jelly beans. Hold on._ " Rizzle said as he ducked through the bars, grabbed a brown paper bag and dragged it back through.

" _You could fit through the bars this whole time_?" Charles asked bluntly.

" _Yeah. Why_?"

" _You are such an idiot_."

"I was allowed to believe in Santa until one of the carers who put the satsuma and the bar of Milky Bar on the ends of our beds trod on a creaky floorboard." Rhydian told her. "I still believe to this day it was because he refused to let the legend of a fat man who visited kids in the night without getting arrested or at least investigated take all the credit for _his_ hard work buying stuff for us."

"Rhydian, Santa is supposed to be a special being that gives presents to the kids who've been good." Maddy lectured him. "If and when I have kids, I'm going to make sure they believe in Santa until they're at least eighteen."

"I know that, but he was still giving _me_ presents and I made Satan look like an angel in my child years." Rhydian countered. "I didn't know what to do with the excess energy."

"That's just natural." Maddy shuffled closer and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Would anyone like a mince pie?" Maddy and Rhydian jolted like they'd just been stung. They hadn't heard Emma approach behind them.

"Thanks, Mrs Smith." Rhydian reached up to the bowl and took one.

"Rhydian, I wish you'd call me Emma." Emma sighed.

"Thanks Mum." Maddy also took one, deciding to join him. Emma went to go back to the kitchen, but was distracted by something in her peripheral vision.

"Daniel Smith, I've told you repeatedly about working in your shed late at night and then wearing your filthy boots in the house the next day! There are muddy foot prints by the tree and I'm sure as hell not cleaning those up!"

"I didn't go near my shed last night." Dan protested as he came over. "You were with me the whole time!" As he got nearer, Emma pointed wordlessly to the jet black boot prints that had left indents in the carpet and ground the ashy substance into the fabric.

"What the hell…?" Maddy and Rhydian had also turned around and seen it.

"That's not mud." Dan realised as he inspected it closer. "That's soot."

"Where would any of us have come into contact with soot?" Emma wondered.

"Emma, no one in this house wears boots that big." Dan said as he looked the prints over.

"What's that in the tree?" Maddy asked as something glinting caught her eye. Dan reached into the branches halfway up where it had been lodged and pulled it out. It was a present that none of them had known about. It was heavy and was wrapped in foil paper. Maddy's family had always hated foil wrapping paper because it was a nightmare to biodegrade. It wasn't from any of them.

"Is there a gift tag?" Emma asked.

"It's for Rhydian." Dan said as he read the label. Rhydian took it gently and opened it. Inside was a glass statue of two wolves cut from the most beautiful blue glass anyone had ever seen. The light that passed through it seemed to dance and sparkle with a light all of its own. One wolf was slightly smaller than the other. It stood facing the bigger one, their muzzles just touching. On the bottom was an inscription that was so small that Rhydian would have found it illegible without his wolf.

' _Make peace with the past, so it won't spoil the present_.'

End!

 **Author's Note: Okay, I know I normally have my seasonal oneshots follow each other year after year, but I decided to do something a little different this time. I normally write them a bit early so I don't forget and as such, this oneshot was actually written in late November. As I mentioned, I've been quite ill lately and this was the first bit of writing that I started and managed to finish while I got back to my old self. I have an idea for a new Trouble in Paradise trilogy. This one will** _ **definitely**_ **be the last one though if I write it since that'll take it up to nine.**

 **I also kept working as best I could on Blood Red Sky, trying to revive all of what I lost. Unfortunately, the spark for that seems to be temperamentally coming and going. I know what I want to do with it since I did it all before. I was just finishing up Chapter 7 when I lost everything all those months ago now, so I've had a lot to re-write. Unsurprisingly, losing that much is a real energy killer, but I'm doing my best even now.**

 **I hope you've all been well. As always, please feel free to review and let me know what you think. The support you guys give is what inspires me to write my next story each time.**


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